Big list of suggestions and a quick newbie hello

[Thought Crime]

First I’d like to say thanks to the Dev team for making this great game! Also for making it free to the public and open for mods. I've been lurking for a while now and decided to make an account.

I would have made an account sooner to add girl mods, but i could never get the WM editor to work on my computer. (Tried using WM editor 0.66 on my Windows 2000 machine. I could run the program just fine but could never get it to compile the file). But i should log my problem in the appropriate forum, instead of here.

I feel like i have a lot of audacity to register as a new member and then immediately make a big list of suggestions. I hope some of my ideas will be helpful and not a complete waste of the Devs time. Thanks in advance for reading.

All of my suggestions are intertwined and impact multiple aspects of the game. This will be a sincere effort to list all of my thoughts with some sort of continuity and to explain my ideas completely.

First: I like the idea of the gangs. Before WM, i was following Sim Brothel until losing interest. Due to  both the stalled development of the game and for the lack of any real "game" to  play. The gangs in WM offered a chance at adding some work for the player and then a reward at the end of all the work accomplished. Recently the suggestions boards have been talking about making gang leaders which I’m in favor of. And this (after a way to long introduction) is where i will make my suggestions..

Quick list:
Prison
Cave Dwellers
Bizarre Bazaar
Drug Collection
Interface efficiency


Prison:

Return of players incarcerated girl, potential new girls, and recruit gang leaders.

I don't know what the devs already have planned for the prison, so my apologies if my request is redundant. I assume that the prison is meant to hold any girls from the players brothel captured by crossgate authorities. How about the option to have the player drop by the prison at any time to see who is being held prisoner already. Aside from the players own captured girls, the player could find two more options. To hire new girls sort of like the slave market. Or a chance to recruit Gang Leaders. I suggest not allowing girls to be gang leaders (overall i think the two should be separate which i will elaborate on later).
Choice on how to acquire
 Either pay bail or jail break. First pay bail: New girls to add to the brothel. Loaded at random from the master list, any (Unique catacombs?) girls that have the aggressive, adventure or tough trait. Once the girl is loaded from the master list and shows up in prison, she will be "locked in" by the game. The purpose of this would be so the player doesn't just wait until she is loaded in the catacombs or from the slave market list. If the player wanted this girl, he/she would have to either pay bail or jail break.
 The player could interact with the convict (potential dialoged could commence) with the choice to "pay bail". The price would be high, say 8,000 gold. If the player chooses this option there would be no change in players suspicion level. If the player chooses "jail break" then the player would need to set one of the gangs to the "jail break" option and select "next week".This would result in risking raising suspicion and chancing a failed break in attempt, losing gang members and increasing the security level of the prison, Making repeated attempts more difficult.
Gang leader interaction would be the same. Either pay bail or jail break. With one more stipulation. Some gang leaders won't join you unless you first give them an item that they require.
An Example dialog:
Sephiroth "I will work for you only if you bring me dark materia"
Dark materia can be an misc. item that has no stat gains. The player could equip it on a girl but it would do nothing. It's purpose would be to "drive plot” Once dark materia is acquired by the player and given to sepirtoh, then the player will have the option of pay bail or jail break. To gain this gang leader.



Cave Dwellers:

like rival gangs the game can load four random "Boss" monsters in the catacombs. The list of current catacomb monsters could be viewed in the town hall along with the current rival gangs. It would look something like this:

Town Hall

influence details
Your influence x% costing Y gold per week
Psycho Crushers x%
South coast Guns x%
Long Magicians x%

number of girls in prison: 0

Catacomb Dwellers:
Kraken
Balrog
Dick Cheney
Belphegor

(set bribe rate button) (back button)

Like the rival gangs occasionally attack and destroy the players territories and take players gold. The catacomb dwellers will occasionally come up out of the catacombs and attack the girls directly in the brothel. In the event of not guarding against a catacomb dweller attack, a random number of girls in the brothel will lose somewhere between 20-60 points of health. possibly die.

my suggestion is to keep the gang and girl jobs separate. Instead have both the girls and the gangs work as a part of one system to complete one task. So an example would be:
 first the gangs can go into the catacombs, capture girls, collect gold and acquire items as per usual. however at some point (say after ten trips into the catacombs) the gangs can not progress any farther until a  boss is defeated. The problem is that gangs can not fight "boss/cave dwellers" type monsters. These can only be killed/captured by assigning a girl or a set of girls to defeat it. Once the cave dweller/ boss is gone, then the gang can resume exploring the catacombs for gold, items, girls etc.
A second suggestion on the choice of kill/capture a Cave dweller is this:
If you capture a cave dweller you can keep it in the brothel as a permanent addition to the beast count that doesn't decline over time. The kraken would have a beast count of four. The only way to lose the kraken would be if a rival gang kills or captures it.
The second option would be to kill the kraken and then the player would get a monster item drop. (like in MMORPG's) Player acquires 4(kraken tentacles).
The purpose of monster item drops (just like in MMORPG's) would be so the player would have to farm items from killing monsters. These items would go under the misc. section and could be equipped on girls but would give no stat gains. Instead the item collecting would be for trading for other items in the games shops. Certain items in the game could only be acquired by collecting and  trading monster dropped items.
The gangs already go into the catacombs and collect items. Why not have them also collect things like "kobold furs" and "reptile scales" adding into the "game" a simple trade system.
Which brings me to my next suggestion of a bazaar.


Bizarre Bazaar:

A new icon on the world map and place for the player to go. The Bizarre Bazaar. is the name that i suggest because it's cute and I’m so clever!! 
The bazaar would be similar to both the slave market and the item shop except with one notable difference. The player can not use gold for purchases. Only trades.
Inside the bazaar would be a slave trader. The slave trader would have a list of girls like in the slave shop but the only way to get the girl in his list would be to trade in some of your girls for one of his. So all those random monster girls that the player accumulates in the dungeon. Instead of branding and selling them. Collect them so you can trade in 3 generic girls for one unique girl. Better girls would require a higher number of random girls. say.... up to six girls need to be traded in to get a quality unique girl.

 The master list can load only unique girls (catacomb girls? or add another option in the WM editor for bazaar girls?)

Other things the player can do in the bazaar is recruit for gang leaders (if gang leaders are implemented in the game)
and stop by the bazaar item shop.

The bazaar item shop, again would not accept gold but only item trades. My suggestion is to make the regular item shop have the more basic items and the bazaar item shop would have some of the more rare/exotic items.
 For example you could get the "oil of lesser breast growth” at the regular item shop but the "oil of greater breast growth" would be an item found in the bazaar. the trader could require you to trade in something like (3) rainbow rings.
What i would rather see though in the bazaar would be trades for monster drop items (mentioned earlier). Gangs would gather monster item drops like (kobold fur) these items are useless to the girls but ten kobold furs would be the asking price for the "oil of greater breast growth" in the bazaar item shop.
Also mention earlier was the example of meeting/hiring Sepiroth from jail. He wouldn't join you until you found him the "dark materia". The dark materia could be an item found only in the bazaar and would require (2) Kraken tentacles (the kraken tentacles, also mentioned earlier would be dropped if you killed the "catacomb dweller" kraken. These "plot driving" items (in this case dark materia) don't have to be predefined to always cost (2) kraken tentacles. When a new game is started "plot items" price's could be set to something specific, in this case (2) kraken tentacles. For the duration of the current game Dark materia will always cost (2) kraken tentacles. If the player starts a new game the price could be randomly generated for a different price. Say, (1) Dick Cheney wheel chair". Which would be dropped when defeating the Dick Cheney "catacomb dweller". In this games iteration the asking price for Dark materia would be (1) Dick cheney wheel chair. I hope that makes sense??


Drug Collection/Refinement:
Gangs and Girls needed to work together to finish one task. Instead of girls doing the same jobs that the gangs are doing.

Something i thought might be cool is to have a drug ring in the game. Something like this:
The player starts with access to the catacombs as per usual and access to the Fairy Dust Mines. If the player wants to sell/fence drugs for gold or for trade in the bazaar, the player would need to collect and refine/package it. The gangs could have an additional option to mine raw fairy dust. This is a job exclusive to gangs. The girls could have an exclusive job that the gangs could not do, and that is to have the job of refine/package fairy dust. The girls can not do this job unless there is raw fairy dust available from the gangs mining. While the girls are assigned to refine/packaging there would be a X% chance that she would get the addiction trait. How about a 9-13% chance that girl doing the refine/package drug job gets addict to fairy dust. Giving the player a need to actually buy those "cures for fairy dust addict" items.
A rival gang would have access to the Shroud Mushroom fields. If the player wants to start harvesting shroud mushrooms along with mining fairy dust, the player would need to defeat the gang that has control of the shroud mushroom field.



Interface Efficiency

A few suggestions on making the micro management a little more efficient.

First in the shop menu:

the shop's current interface is fine, but what i would like to see is one more panel that displays the girls stats.

For example. I'm in the shop and i see that there are three stripper poles available. I want to buy all three but i don't remember what three girls have the lowest stripper status. The way the current interface works is this. I would have to click out of the shop, back to the "girl details" screen click through each girl and memorize which three have the lowest strip status. Click back into the shop and click each girl individually and purchase the item.
What i would like is if, in the shop screen, the girls stats (her picture is not need) would load when i click her name.
So in the left pane, i would select "shop" the right pane i would select one of the girls in the list. Then an additional pane to the right of the girls name would display her stats. No need to navigate back and forth between "girl details" to "shop" back to "girl details" back to "shop". I know i sound like a petulant child complaining about how long it takes to click back and forth, but i really do think that this would increase the efficiency of shopping.

Second: Why not use the click Right Mouse button in the brothel screen? The screen that lists all the girls names along with their health, tired,
happy percents. Along with their day and night time job assignments.

 I was thinking how much easier it would be if i could just click on a girl’s name, zip the mouse to the "day" column "right click" and have a "pop up" menu list: general, brothel, bar, gambling hall. "mouse hover" over general "pop out" menu with the options of free time, practice, clean, etc.

Instead of the current interface where the player is needed to click on the girl, drag the mouse to the bottom of the screen, click day or night and select the job. Then drag the mouse back up the screen to the next girl.

Maybe XML or Lua code won't allow for right mouse clicks to "pop up" windows?? or would Pop up windows cause latency?

What else would be cool is if i could right mouse click on the girls "happy" and get the pop up with the options: interact with, give item from player inventory, item from shop inventory. Admittedly, listing the entire shop inventory in the pop up menu may be a bit much, but to interact with her from the brothel screen instead of going into the "girl details" screen could save the player some time.


That was a long and exhausting list. I suspect i will see the response

TL;DR

If you actually read all of this or just some of it. Thank You. I hope it was of some help. since i can't help with the coding.

[megamanx]

I personally can see some of this going in maybe not all but at least some and I do like the Bizarre Bazzar we also could have unique beasts. The thing I like most is the prison aspect which makes me wonder why it isn't already in there.

[Mehzerz]

Prison:
Return of players incarcerated girl, potential new girls, and recruit gang leaders.

I assume that the prison is meant to hold any girls from the players brothel captured by crossgate authorities. How about the option to have the player drop by the prison at any time to see who is being held prisoner already. Aside from the players own captured girls, the player could find two more options. To hire new girls sort of like the slave market. Or a chance to recruit Gang Leaders. I suggest not allowing girls to be gang leaders (overall i think the two should be separate which i will elaborate on later).
Choice on how to acquire
 Either pay bail or jail break. First pay bail: New girls to add to the brothel. Loaded at random from the master list, any (Unique catacombs?) girls that have the aggressive, adventure or tough trait. Once the girl is loaded from the master list and shows up in prison, she will be "locked in" by the game. The purpose of this would be so the player doesn't just wait until she is loaded in the catacombs or from the slave market list. If the player wanted this girl, he/she would have to either pay bail or jail break.


Cave Dwellers:
first the gangs can go into the catacombs, capture girls, collect gold and acquire items as per usual. however at some point (say after ten trips into the catacombs) the gangs can not progress any farther until a  boss is defeated. The problem is that gangs can not fight "boss/cave dwellers" type monsters. These can only be killed/captured by assigning a girl or a set of girls to defeat it. Once the cave dweller/ boss is gone, then the gang can resume exploring the catacombs for gold, items, girls etc. 

I have to say the two ideas I quoted are by far my favorite. I believe you're right about the current prison being used to bail out girls that have been taken to prison due to your high suspicion. (Havent had it happen to me personally)
I would suggest breaking up the prison if that were the case, for girls that you already own and girls that you don't own yet in different parts so there's no confusion. But other than that, it could make things more interesting.


As for your "cave dwellers" That's a very smart way to break up the catacombs. I don't know how you'd determine how the fight would be won. You need a specific amount of stats? Not really sure but, it does sound cool.


The monster spoils I'm not so sure about. seems pretty unnecessary and very inconvenient, not to mention it doesn't sound fun at all. Now I like the bazaar but I don't particularly agree with setting it up like that. I figure instead of one bazaar you could have many. You have your standard item shop with very common items and a few harder to come by items. While you'll have the bazaar for average items and some rares and a final one for rares to impossible find items. These bazaars will require a special pass to enter. I figure the first one could just be a small fee, while the other two are special circumstances or events. 


As for the drug trade I thought something similar was going to be implemented with the building system. So I won't comment too much on that, though it would be interesting to see something like it in WM at some point.

[DocClox]

Prison

I've thought about recruiting girls from prison, and I'll probably do something along those lines. I want to reduce the overall girl supply first - it's much too easy to acquire girls at the moment, and I don't want to add any more sources of them until I have some curbs on the current supply.

Gang leaders from prison is a good idea. I agree about not letting girls be gang leaders.

  Cave Dwellers:
 

 
This would make a good way of restricting access to the deeper catacombs, but we'd need a decent justification for why you need girls to beat the boss monster. And probably a more interesting combat mechanic. Otherwise it's going to be a case of select every girl in the brothel, send them down the catacombs, heal and repeat. 

    Bizarre Bazaar:[/b]

Multiple slave markets are planned. I like the idea of a trade only market for girls. It's going to need its own screen though, so it'll probably have to wait until I get the lua screen handlers working in WM.

I want to get the idea of city wards working, with higher wards needing uto be unlocked, but with better markets and richer punters available once you do. This would be a good establishment for a higher ward.

      Also mention earlier was the example of meeting/hiring Sepiroth from jail. He wouldn't join you until you found him the "dark materia".

I'm keen to get some complex event sequences in the game.
  Multiple slave markets are planned. I like the idea of a trade only   market for girls. It's going to need its own screen though, so it'll   probably have to wait until I get the lua screen handlers working in WM.   
     
  I want to get the idea of city wards working, with higher wards needing   uto be unlocked, but with better markets and richer punters available   once you do. This would be a good establishment for a higher ward.
     
   

the shop's current interface is fine, but what i would like to see is one more panel that displays the girls stats.

mmm... traits, too. I'm fed up of going to buy an addiction cure and then forgetting what the girl was hooked on and having to go back and check.

  Second: Why not use the click Right Mouse button in the brothel screen?

Well, up until yesterday, the game engine didn't differentiate between mouse buttons. I just fixed that, so we can use right clicks and context menus. I've wanted that for gang and girl management for a while now. The drop down menus are working in Lua in the clonemaster branch, and XML is just a data format, so I don't anticipate any problems in that regard.

[Lorde]

Also mention earlier was the example of meeting/hiring Sepiroth from jail. He wouldn't join you until you He wouldn't join you until you found him the "dark materia".

This goes back to the gang leader idea from the gang thread. I like the idea that you would have to jump through hoops like this to get the gang leaders.

 

Well, up until yesterday, the game engine didn't differentiate between mouse buttons. I just fixed that, so we can use right clicks and context menus. I've wanted that for gang and girl management for a while now. The drop down menus are working in Lua in the clonemaster branch, and XML is just a data format, so I don't anticipate any problems in that regard.

This, I love this idea. The dreaded "micromanagement" is usually used to describe interfaces that take forever to pilot through. Thus increasing amount of time for the player to do what he wants. The more shortcuts you create, the more intuitive you make the interface the less people baww "micromanagement". Also, this would let us set jobs from a right click pop up menu, which would be great.

[Thought Crime]

This would make a good way of restricting access to the deeper catacombs, but we'd need a decent justification for why you need girls to beat the boss monster. And probably a more interesting combat mechanic. Otherwise it's going to be a case of select every girl in the brothel, send them down the catacombs, heal and repeat. 

  On the topic of cave dwellers or boss fights, here are a few   suggestions:
 
  Set up conditions on the cave dweller, something like this. The Kraken   could only be damaged by the Spear of Poseidon. But the game only has   one (maybe 2?) Spear of Poseidon weapons in the game. So only the girl   the weapon is equipped on, could do damage to the Kraken. The advantage   to this system is that it would be relatively quick and easy to add in   to the current code/combat system you have in place already. I would   prefer not to handle cave dweller fights like this since.... it's kinda'   lame.
 
  A second suggestion that would require a little more work but could   still be implemented with the current combat mechanic:
 
  Make the cave dweller vs. girl fight, series specific.
  For example: One cave dweller could be "Grimmjow" from the anime Bleach.   So the only girls that could battle him are the girls from the anime   Bleach. Such as Matsumoto, Rukia, Inoue.
 
  A final final suggestion on cave dweller battles. If you're feeling   ambitious.
  There is an H-game called: Princess Waltz
  http://www.erogereview.com/2008/04/30/princess-waltz/
 
  This game has a "card battle system" for handling all monster battles.   This may go WAY above and beyond the scope you had in mind for WM but If   you were interested in making a second combat mechanic for the game, an   in-game card battle game might be cool.
 
  The advantage to having the player do boss, cave dweller battles like   this, is that it gives the player some sense of having control of the   actual outcome of the battle. Instead of just clicking one button and   letting the computer generate two random numbers, deciding who wins and   loses.
  I recall on an earlier forum, the idea of an Arena for girl fights. This   same card battle system could be used there as well.
 
  If card battling seems like more work than you want to do, you could   consider posting a request to the Newgrounds.com board. They have all   sorts of Flash game makers over there. Maybe someone would be willing to   "whip" you up a snazzy little card game.